All posts by h716a5.icu

RCB allrounder Shreyanka Patil wants to be 'X-factor player'

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

The 20-year-old’s range of shots, and her fearlessness in executing them, has impressed stalwarts such as Devine and Perry

Shashank Kishore15-Mar-2023″I’d like to give myself some credit, because I’ve put in the effort.”In an age where young players are coached to say the right things, Shreyanka Patil, 20, is different. There’s an unmistakable confidence about her as she speaks about her rise up the ranks.Patil was signed by Royal Challengers Bangalore on the back of an excellent domestic one-day tournament, where she was the second-highest wicket-taker for Karnataka. Five games in, she has been one of the bright spots in what has largely been a disappointing campaign for her side.In her first WPL game, she immediately impressed with 23 off 15 balls from No. 8 against Mumbai Indians. Her range of shots and the fearlessness in executing them received plaudits from stalwarts such as Sophie Devine and Ellyse Perry. In her second outing, she performed with the ball, picking 2 for 32 against Gujarat Giants. That she got the opportunity to bat at No. 6 in her most recent outing, against Delhi Capitals, was further validation of her batting potential.Related

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“Players like Shreyanka, she is no doubt going to play for India in the years to come,” Devine had said after her WPL debut. “Seeing what she can do with the ball and how she struck the ball, I think I need to go to her for six-hitting guide.”Patil is an offspinner but gushes about having the mind of a fast bowler who can bowl yorkers on demand. She has a small build but doesn’t let that come in the way of hitting big sixes. As a fielder, she has a lively presence inside the ring. All these attributes are much welcome in any T20 outfit, but Patil doesn’t want to be “any player”.”X-factor player,” Patil says with a grin. “That’s what I want to be. That’s what I train for. That’s what I’ve been taught to be. You have to be different, right? That’s how you get noticed.”It is this “being different” that convinced Patil’s father, Rajesh, that she was talented. He noticed her unwavering concentration while playing with a hanging ball for hours together at the cricket academy he ran, where she played for five years.She had a penchant to time the ball but grew up hearing about the need to have a second skillset to complement her game. She tried her hand at fast bowling, legspin and wicketkeeping, but finalised on offspin only because there weren’t too many of that variety in her set at the Karnataka Under-14 trials.”Essentially, I took up offspin and got picked immediately. That’s when I became serious about it,” Patil chuckles. “Also, getting picked was a kind of realisation for dad that I was serious about the game. He decided I needed to go to a bigger set-up.”Patil has a small build but doesn’t let that come in the way of hitting big sixes•BCCIPatil began training at the Dravid-Padukone Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru. Arjun Dev, her coach there, would become her mentor. Their working relationship was so strong that when Dev moved on to begin his own academy three years ago – NICE Academy – Patil also moved with him and became the academy’s first female cricket trainee.But moving to a new set-up brought its own set of challenges.”I realised I spent far too much time commuting to the academy,” she says. “In a city like Bangalore, it can get to you. Four hours of commute up and down every day didn’t help. I decided it was time to focus on those four hours and use them better.”Patil, unlike several others in the WPL, was fortunate to have the means and support of her family to move homes. She found herself an apartment a hop away from the academy and moved in to live by herself so that she could train and focus better.”That’s one of the best decisions I made,” she says. “More than having quality training, I feel it has changed me as a person. You learn to be independent, you learn to think for yourself, [and] have time for yourself.”Growing up as kids, you kind of take your parents for granted, but actually being away in that sense was an education for me. It helped that they supported me. My mom was initially against the idea, but once she saw the benefits of the move, she bought into it wholeheartedly.”Patil is still four months short of turning 21, but she has already established herself in the Karnataka set-up. However, only a year ago, she was benched for the T20s. It’s then she acknowledged that it was important to work extra hard, even if it meant spending eight or nine hours at training across two sessions. That is when she realised the decision to live closer to her training facility was a massive boon.Patil is still short of turning 21 but has already established herself in the Karnataka set-up•Shreyanka Patil”She had the skills; it was more about helping her understand her game,” Dev says. “She bowls at a quick pace for women’s cricket. Initially, she would be dubbed as this expensive bowler. For me, most of the coaching was around making her understand [that] pace is her speciality, not a weakness.”In women’s cricket, if you watch domestic tournaments especially, you will see legspinners and left-arm spinners mostly bowl to 6-3 fields. Offspinners also bowl 6-3 because they don’t turn the ball that much. We told Shreyanka, ‘You’re too good to do just that. You have something different, go down that route. You may not be appreciated at the moment, but eventually your time will come.’ Her returns at the one-day tournament were a validation. That played a big role in her WPL call-up.””I think my biggest learning has been to think for myself and develop plans,” Patil elaborates this point, “and then fine-tune it with people I trust – like Arjun sir. I realised I can’t be spoon-fed. That doesn’t help anyone. When Mike [Hesson, Royal Challengers’ director of cricket] told me after our first session how he was impressed that I had come fully prepared, it was a kind of vindication of my own beliefs and plans had worked so hard on.”Patil aims to play for India by 2025. It’s a goal she charted out once cricket resumed after Covid-19. And while she has had an impressive start to her WPL stint, she knows there is a long way to go, and goes by a simple mantra: “Stick to your plans, keep pushing the boundaries, and the rewards will come. It’s that simple for me.”There can’t be more clarity than that.

James Anderson returns to Lord's with chance to change his Ashes narrative

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

England’s star seamer hasn’t won a Test against Australia since 2015, and time is running out

Matt Roller27-Jun-2023At London Stadium on Saturday night, Adam Wainwright had one of the worst games of his career. A St Louis Cardinals pitcher, Wainwright conceded seven runs – his worst performance of what is his final Major League Baseball season, at the age of 41. Watching from the stands was James Anderson.Along with Nathan Lyon, Anderson threw the ceremonial first pitch of the match before joining the BBC commentary team, which featured his podcast co-host Felix White. “Remind you of anyone?” White asked Anderson after explaining Wainwright’s back story. “Definitely,” Anderson replied with a wry smile.Anderson’s performance in Birmingham earlier that week was not as bad as Wainwright’s in London – but it was not a Test match that he will look back on with any fondness. He took a solitary wicket in his 38 overs across both innings and admitted in his column this week: “I wasn’t on top of my game”.It could easily have been three wickets, however. Anderson had two chances missed off his bowling: in the first over of the third morning, Jonny Bairstow put Alex Carey down, and in the first over of Australia’s run chase, Usman Khawaja’s outside edge flew away between Bairstow and Joe Root at first slip for four.But uncharacteristically, he played a bit-part role. He bowled fewer overs than England’s other main bowlers; the first innings was the first time in 14 years that he had played in a home Test and not taken the new ball; in the second, he was unused for the final 36.3 overs as Australia snuck home.That stretch included not taking the second new ball. “We agreed it was the type of pitch the taller bowlers were getting more out of,” Anderson said. In a match that was decided in the 93rd over, his final ball was in the 56th – and was crashed over mid-off for four by Cameron Green.James Anderson walks out for practice ahead of his record 28th Test at Lord’s•PA Images via Getty ImagesIt all added up to a familiar sensation for Anderson on the final evening: walking off the field after losing an Ashes Test. This was his 19th defeat to Australia, the third-most of any Englishman after Alec Stewart and Mike Atherton, and his 10th consecutive Ashes Test without a win.Remarkably, the last time Anderson won against Australia was eight years ago at Edgbaston, a Test in which Alastair Cook captained England and Steven Finn was named Player of the Match. This summer, both men are working as pundits for the second successive Ashes series.Four years ago, Anderson came into the Ashes undercooked – and his series lasted four overs. He had not played in over a month after a calf niggle, missed a Test match against Ireland, and suffered a recurrence of his injury at Edgbaston that ruled him out for the summer.This summer, he came into the series after a similar break since his last first-class match and admitted during the first Test: “I feel like I do need a bit of game time to get back into it.” England’s hope is that he will be better for the run, and will have a greater impact at Lord’s this week.”Jimmy’s flying,” Stokes said on Tuesday. “He had a good bowl yesterday and a good bowl today and was completely fine.” England’s decision to pick an extra seamer might alleviate his workload, but Stokes clarified: “We didn’t pick four seamers to make this week easier for Jimmy – just to make that clear.”He’s good,” Stokes added. “I mean, he’s just an unbelievable athlete, still doing what he’s doing at 40 years old… it is just unbelievable to watch him go about his business.” Anderson celebrates his 41st birthday on the penultimate scheduled day of this series.Related

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Anderson has a remarkable record in the Stokes-McCullum era, with 46 wickets at 19.60 even after his quiet outing in Birmingham. He has spoken of feeling reinvigorated by the new regime, enjoying a new lease of life as he approaches the end of a long and storied career.But the first Test was a reminder of his humanity. Anderson has defied retirement for so long that it is hardly worth speculating how long he has left, but told the before the series: “I don’t want to drag it out and people are thinking: ‘Can you just do one?’ I would like to be able to go out on a nice note.”It is often said that England players are remembered for their feats against Australia but Anderson might be an exception to that rule. They are the opponent against whom he averages the most (34.43), with a slightly worse record at home (45 wickets at 35.06) than away (68 at 34.01).The next five weeks provide him with an opportunity to change that. Anderson has thrived at Lord’s and conditions for the second Test looked ideally suited to him: a covering of live grass on a pitch that MCC hope will have more pace than last week’s, plus cloud cover throughout the five days.There are five months between the end of the Ashes and the start of England’s next Test series in India, an obvious opportunity for Anderson to bow out if he decides it is time to move on. What better stage for it than a potential Oval decider?

Five things England can learn in the Caribbean

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

We look at some of the questions England will try to answer across ODI and T20I series against West Indies

Alan Gardner01-Dec-2023Will Jacks demonstrated his attacking instincts against Ireland in September•PA Photos/Getty ImagesIs Jacks the real deal?Who is the only man to have played all three formats for England in the last 12 months but not receive a central contract? Not yet a regular, at the same time you don’t have to think too far outside the box to come up with the name of Will Jacks. While David Willey’s snub took the headlines, it is the case of Jacks that could become much more pertinent in selection meetings. One of the most aggressive batters among England’s next generation – his commitment to attack was epitomised by his dismissal, caught on the boundary for 94 off 88 balls, with a maiden hundred in sight against Ireland in September – he will have a chance to stake his claim at the top of the order in both white-ball formats. His offspin is also good enough to have brought him a six-for on Test debut (just don’t mention the fact his lack of a central contract might yet mean he opts to fulfil an SA20 deal ahead of the chance to tour India early next year). The ECB’s decision “was disappointing but it does give me freedom,” he told the earlier this week, before adding: “The World Cup is a massive one so playing T20 cricket is really important to me at the moment. The way the game and the world is at the moment definitely suits me.”Who holds the keys to No. 3?While Jacks and Phil Salt will be looking to cement their status as a firestarting opening combo in the Hales-Roy mould, the identity of the ODI side’s No. 3 could be even more pivotal. Joe Root indicated during the World Cup that he hoped to still be in the team for the next edition in four years’ time, but a tournament haul of 312 runs at 30.66 raised the heretical notion that – as in the T20 format – England might be better off without their most classically adroit batter. Zak Crawley seems likely to get first bite at first drop in the new era, and there is every chance that one of the Test team’s purest Bazballers could thrive in conditions that are less likely to expose technical issues. Equally intriguing, though perhaps on the backburner, is the prospect of Ollie Pope being ported across from his berth in the Test side. As discussed on the latest Switch Hit podcast, Pope was seemingly preferred in the squad to Sam Hain on the basis of his range and versatility across formats. He has yet to play a limited-overs game for England but, with a run-a-ball Test double-hundred to his name, ought not to have any trouble setting the required tempo.Is Carse the new Plunkett?There were a multitude of missteps across England’s doomed World Cup defence, but one of their mistakes could perhaps be charted right back to July 14, 2019. That was the last time Liam Plunkett played international cricket, and his reputation as a middle-overs wrecking ball has grown with each passing year that England failed to find a suitable replacement. In India, their bowlers in the second powerplay (overs 11-40) averaged 43.59, putting them seventh out of the ten competing nations, one below Netherlands – and that despite a successful tournament for Adil Rashid, the legspinning foil to Plunkett’s hit-the-deck enforcer. Enter (belatedly): Brydon Carse. The Durham quick has had an injury-disrupted career and, at 28, has only played 21 List A matches; in 76 T20s, he has 40 wickets at 41.95. But during a handful of England outings spread across two-and-a-half years there have been glimpses of high pace and a Plunkett-esque modus operandi, while his career-bests in both white-ball formats have come in international fixtures. With David Willey retiring, Chris Woakes and Mark Wood unlikely to do another four-year cycle, and Jofra Archer still in injury-enforced limbo, this tour represents a chance for Carse, Gus Atkinson, Matt Potts and the uncapped John Turner to prove that England’s seam stocks still run deep.Rehan Ahmed has come a long way in a short space of time•AFP/Getty ImagesRehan ready to fill Rashid’s boots?The spin department, meanwhile, already has its coming man. It was in the Caribbean two winters ago that Rehan Ahmed first came to wider attention (beyond his role as a teenage nets bowler at Lord’s) when helping England to runners-up spot in the Under-19 World Cup. Since then he has made his mark in the history books by becoming the youngest man to win senior England caps in all three formats, which included taking a five-for on Test debut, and generally handled every challenge thrown his way while still being a teenager. In the Caribbean, Rehan will provide the main slow-bowling threat for the ODIs – remarkably, with 10 List A appearances, he has twice as much experience in the format as the other spinner on tour, Tom Hartley – before resuming his role as sorcerer’s apprentice when Rashid returns for the T20I leg. Having taken over, and impressed, as Southern Brave’s wristspin option during the Hundred, his continued progress in the shortest format will likely inform his chances of being involved in next year’s T20 World Cup.Will these three World Cup winners make it to the 2024 event?•Associated PressIs old still gold in T20?It is the looming defence (and England surely won’t shy away from that word again) of another world title that means the T20I series against West Indies will carry greater weight. England have stuck with the majority of their 2022 T20 World Cup-winning squad – Dawid Malan the only member who has been explicitly dropped – but there could still be significant jostling for position, with Jacks, Rehan, Atkinson and Ben Duckett foremost among those looking to make a mark in the absence of established names like Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow, Wood and Chris Jordan. Even those involved in the Caribbean, such as Rashid, Woakes and Moeen Ali, could be left looking over their shoulders. Moeen, who will turn 37 midway through the tournament next June, has hinted that the World Cup would be a logical end point for his international career but England will want to be clear they are picking him on merit rather than reputation. Getting the old gang back together failed disastrously at the ODI World Cup, although there are two clear differences here – a smaller gap between tournaments and the fact England’s players play a lot more T20 year round. With two-time champions West Indies also trying to rouse themselves after back-to-back blowouts at T20 World Cups, it should be all to play for in Barbados, Grenada and Trinidad.

Stats – Inexperienced India break 112-year-old comeback record

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

All the numbers from the series where India out-Bazballed England

Sampath Bandarupalli10-Mar-2024The best comeback in more than 110 yearsIndia could not have hoped for a worse start to their five-match series against England as they lost the first Test despite a 190-run first-innings lead. Only once before had India lost after taking a bigger first-innings lead – 192 vs Sri Lanka in 2015. Their previous highest at home was 65 runs against Australia in 1964. The 231-run target that India failed to chase in Hyderabad was the joint-second-lowest for them at home. But they bounced back in style by winning all four remaining matches.With that, India became only the fourth team ever to win a series of five or more matches by a 4-1 margin despite losing the first match. The last of the previous three such instances came 112 years ago – England winning the five-match Ashes series in Australia in 1911-12. Australia did the same twice at home in the Ashes – in 1897-98 and 1901-02.

The highest difference was 31.36 during England’s victorious Ashes series in 2005. Their average caps per player in the series was 27.33, while the visiting Australians had 58.69.The 2011-12 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, where Australia whitewashed India 4-0, stands second on this list. Australia’s average caps per player in the series was 30.54 less than India’s.Nine of India’s 178 Test wins have come when their playing XI’s experience (Test caps) was either half or less than half of their opposition’s. Four such victories have come in this series alone.

Joe Root > India’s XIWhile India’s win in Visakhapatnam ranked second in the ratio between their XI’s Test caps and that of the opposition, the batting line-up (top six) India brought to the match had a combined experience of 107 Tests. More than half of those belonged to Rohit Sharma, with 55 Tests.Rajat Patidar batted at No. 5 on his debut, and Axar Patel was the specialist No. 6. Though Axar’s Test average was over 35 coming into the game, he had regularly batted at eight or nine earlier. Axar came in twice at No. 9 in his previous series against Australia and did the same in the first innings in Hyderabad.India’s playing XI in Visakhapatnam had only 10,336 Test runs between them before the start of the match, which was 1111 runs fewer than Joe Root’s tally of 11,447. It was the first instance in 75 years at home that the career runs of India’s playing XI were lower than a single opponent’s batter.

There have been seven other instances in this period, but all away from home. Four of the seven were when they came up against either Jacques Kallis or Kumar Sangakkara in the opposition. Until 1948, India had 16 instances where their playing XI’s career runs were less than one or more opposition players, all being in India’s first 16 matches in the format.England’s experienced batters fail to deliverEngland’s three young spinners had only one Test cap between them before the series started. While they kept challenging their senior Indian counterparts in terms of wickets, they were behind when it came to the average runs per wicket. Tom Hartley, Shoaib Bashir and Rehan Ahmed picked up 50 wickets between them in 20 bowling innings combined, while R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav took 64 in 26 innings. But the Indian trio averaged 13 runs fewer than the visiting team’s young spinners.

On the other hand, England’s senior batters failed to pose much threat. Root, Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow had all played 100 (or more) Tests by the time the series ended, including more than ten matches in India. But they were outclassed by India’s debutants. England’s trio collectively scored 757 runs, averaging 26.1, with only three fifty-plus scores.

The four Indian batters who debuted in this series scored 472 runs in half the number of innings and averaged 36.31 with five fifties. Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel and Devdutt Padikkal scored 409 of those at an average of 58.43 in nine innings between them, whereas England’s senior trio scored 473 runs in 18 innings at only 27.82 in the last three Tests.

A series for sixes and spinnersWith Bazball being the talk of the town, one would have expected this Test series to scale new heights in boundary hitting. England had scored at four-plus runs per over in all the series played under Stokes and Brendon McCullum before arriving in India. Matching those expectations, this India-England series became the first in Test history to witness 100 or more sixes.The milestone 100th six came in Dharamsala involving two players in their 100th Test – Bairstow off Ashwin. However, it wasn’t England who kept sending the ball over the ropes. The young Indian team struck 72 sixes, well ahead of England’s 30.No team has ever hit 50 or more sixes in a Test series previously, but India got there in the first innings of the fourth Test. India hit 28 of their 72 sixes in the third Test in Rajkot itself, also a record. Yashasvi Jaiswal hit 26 sixes in the series, only four behind England, and comfortably broke the record for most sixes by a batter in a Test series.This series also broke the record for most wickets taken by spin bowlers, with 129 going to them. The previous highest number of wickets by spinners in a Test series was 109, also during a five-match series between India and England in 1972-73.

Stats – Ghosh breaks batting speed limits in India's first 200 in women's T20Is

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

Ghosh and Harmanpreet also combined to rewrite a number of Women’s Asia Cup records

Sampath Bandarupalli21-Jul-2024201 for 5 – India’s total against UAE on Sunday is the highest for any team in the women’s T20 Asia Cup, surpassing India’s 181 for 4 against Malaysia in the previous edition in 2022. India have six of the top-seven totals in the history of the competition.1 – India’s 201 for 5 is their first 200-plus total in women’s T20Is. Their previous highest total in the format was 198 for 4 against England at the 2018 triangular series at Mumbai’s Brabourne Stadium.220.68 – Ghosh’s strike rate during her unbeaten 29-ball 64 is the highest for India in a 50-plus score in women’s T20Is. The previous highest was 204 by Smriti Mandhana when she scored an unbeaten 25-ball 51 against Sri Lanka in the 2022 Asia Cup final.26 – Number of balls Ghosh took to complete her fifty. It is now the second-fastest in the women’s T20 Asia Cup, behind the 25-ball effort of Mandhana against Sri Lanka in 2022. Ghosh’s 26-ball fifty is also the joint-fifth fastest for India in the format.3415 – Runs Harmanpreet now has in T20Is. She is now the second-highest run-getter in women’s T20Is, going ahead of Meg Lanning (3405), with only Suzie Bates (4348) ahead of her.ESPNcricinfo Ltd64* – Ghosh’s score against UAE is now the highest by a wicketkeeper for India in women’s T20Is. Sulakshana Naik’s 59 against Sri Lanka in 2010 is the only other half-century by an Indian wicketkeeper in women’s T20Is.75 – Partnership runs between Ghosh and Harmanpreet for the fifth wicket. It is the highest partnership for the fifth (or lower) wicket at the women’s T20 Asia Cup.It is also India’s second-highest fifth-wicket stand in women’s T20Is, behind the 77 between Mithali Raj and Anuja Patil against Sri Lanka in 2016.1 – Harmanpreet’s 66 is the highest individual score for a captain at the women’s T20 Asia Cup, surpassing Bismah Maroof’s 62 against Malaysia in 2018.Ghosh’s 64* is also the highest by a wicketkeeper in the women’s T20 Asia Cup. Nigar Sultana’s 53 against Malaysia in 2022 was the previous highest.

When Ilyas dived, Oman dreamt…then came Stoinis

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

The moment Glenn Maxwell fell first ball you started to wonder what was possible, but in the end the predicted script played out

Melinda Farrell06-Jun-20241:16

Stoinis: Oman were a very skillful team

The powerplay is done. Australia: 37 for 1. Not bad Oman, you think, not bad at all.From the start you had nodded in approval, all you associates dreamers, as Kaleemullah twice drew the inside edge from Travis Head and pinged David Warner’s front pad. The wicket is tacky and slow and everyone says that’s a great leveller, just the thing to cut the big boys down to size.First blood to the underdogs!, you hurrahed, as Head drove Bilal Khan to Khalid Kail. When Shakeel Ahmed fired one in at Warner and the stumps lit up, you crowed in unison with the small crowd and the Kensington Oval big screens that screamed OUT!, only to discover the ball had ricocheted off Prathik Athavale’s pads. Still, it was another play and miss. Score one for Oman’s bowlers.Related

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You admire the gusto and commitment of the red-clad fielders as they sprint hard and fling themselves at every ball. Aqib Ilyas’ sharp dive in the covers that prevents a Mitchell Marsh boundary is so good Ayaan Khan runs in all the way from the boundary rope to backslap his captain and you throw a little fist pump yourself.When Marsh picks out long-on you feel a little tremor but the big quake is yet to come.Oh man, oh man, OMAN!, you scream as Ilyas soars to his left and clings onto Glenn Maxwell’s first-ball loose drive. Two in two! A screamer, a cracker, a pick-your-superlative blinder. Could this be Australia’s banana skin moment? Could you dare to believe this fairytale might come to life?As Warner and Marcus Stoinis scrap and scrape you start calculating. Could Oman keep them to 120? 130? Anything under 150 and surely it’s game on.In the 14th over Ilyas is hurling his legbreaks and googlies with the same conviction he had hurled himself in the covers. He draws Stoinis forward and the ball fizzes past his bat and barely misses the off stump before Athavale puts it down. Yeah, you muse, he’s got him on the run. It’s only when you see the replay that you realise it wasn’t a play and miss but the finest feather, a chance gone begging. Still, the skipper has Stoinis’ number, surely, it’s only a matter of time.Aqib Ilyas celebrates his stunning catch to remove Glenn Maxwell•ICC/Getty ImagesMehran Khan is back for the 15th over. He has two wickets already, two in two. He took 3 for 7 against Namibia and inspired an avalanche of commentary questioning Oman’s decision not to bowl him in that game’s Super Over. Maybe this would be his moment.His first ball finds the outside edge of Stoinis’ bat. It’s two runs, but another edge will do.It’s not an edge, it’s a lusty blow and it’s heading straight for Ayaan on the deep cover boundary, eyes on the ball as he backpedals, hands above his head. He takes the catch – yessssssssss! – but no, his momentum sees him tumbling back over the rope. So close. But still, you hope, it’s only a matter of time.Down the ground goes Stoinis; he has found his range and suddenly the dream starts to waver.Wham! Splat! Old school Batman graphics wouldn’t be amiss as Stoinis goes down the ground, again and again, but even Adam West couldn’t fill a skintight superhero suit the way Stoinis does when he flexes his sizeable biceps.Marcus Stoinis took advantage of his reprieves to kickstart Australia•Associated PressBig Papi is in town, the Stoin unleashed, as he grabs the momentum and casually slings it over his shoulder. The most alpha moment comes at the start of the final over, when he drives Bilal down to long-on for what would be an easy single. Stoinis turns it down with Tim David at the non-striker’s end. Yes, that Tim David, the bloke who eats death bowlers for breakfast. Flex much?Oman’s fate is sealed. Australia have too much firepower and too many runs to defend. Mitchell Starc mixes a few loosey-gooseys with the magic balls. Adam Zampa finds drift and grip, Nathan Ellis is suitably sharp and Josh Hazlewood gives little away.Starc, Zampa and Ellis take two wickets apiece but that won’t do. This is Stoinis’ joint and he pops his pecs one, two, three times. He does for the current captain with a ball that straightens, clipping the edge of Ilyas’ bat on the way to a diving Matthew Wade. The former captain is his next victim, chasing a wide one that lands in the same pair of gloves. The icing is Mehran. Who cares if it’s a full toss or it takes a boundary rope juggle from David to complete the catch? The wickets belong to the pumped-up West Australian who models on the streets of New York in his spare time.The dream was fleeting for Oman, before the beautiful brutality of The Big Stoin.Australia march on, the first hurdle surmounted. Wobble, what wobble? There is only Stoinis’ megawatt smile.

What's happened to Babar Azam's Test batting?

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

There has been a stark drop in his numbers, but he has a chance to reverse that in the nine Tests in the upcoming season

Osman Samiuddin20-Aug-2024This is a big season of cricket for Pakistan, an unprecedented season in some ways. They play nine Tests, the most in a season since 1998-99. They host three bilateral Test series in a season, which they haven’t done before. They host an ICC event for the first time since 1996. Their two main grounds are undergoing the biggest upgrades since practically forever. And the PSL becomes the first league to go head-to-head against the IPL next year. It all feels a little bit seismic.It is also a big season for Babar Azam, their premier batter and, until recently, the biggest star in the Pakistan game and unquestioned leader of all three national men’s sides. But in the last year some of that authority has gone. He’s no longer the all-format captain. He remains their T20 captain, though even that isn’t guaranteed.He doesn’t quite command the team as he once did, and in Shaheen Afridi, for one, different centres of power are emergent. Once, Babar presided over a happy and united dressing room; the one he is merely a member of now isn’t quite as shiny, happy or smiley as the social media posts want you to believe.Above all, though, and far more a matter for concern, is that some of the lustre has slipped from his batting, whence his authority primarily flowed from. In T20s, the debate around his batting is an old and tiresome one. ODIs don’t matter, until they do. It is, instead, in Tests where a sharp dip in productivity has really hit home. It has also passed, by and large, unnoted.Related

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Which is strange because the numbers are pretty stark. From the start of 2019 until December 2022, Babar averaged nearly 60 in Tests. In that time, he averaged over 50 in Australia, nearly 50 in England and West Indies, nearly 70 in Sri Lanka, over 80 in Pakistan, and as if to troll the ZimBabar critics, only 1 against Zimbabwe. No statpadding here, thank you very much. Either the Fab Four needed to expand membership to include him, or someone within needed replacing.Since then, though, he’s been averaging a far more ordinary 37.41. This run includes a solitary hundred and three fifties in nine Tests. In his last Test series, in Australia, he averaged 21, his lowest in a series (excluding the Zimbabwe series of 2021) since 2017-18, well before he had established himself in the side.It’s not that he has looked out of form exactly, but it’s also true that he has rarely looked invulnerable. The Australia series is a great illustration of this. He got starts in five out of six innings, working really hard for them, but ultimately he could manage a highest of only 41. Four out of the six dismissals were to balls that hit like jaffas at first but which, upon reflection, revealed in Babar’s batting a lingering carelessness to incoming deliveries. Three of the six were bowled or leg-before, a mode of dismissal that is, perhaps, a thing.

In that run between 2019 and 2022, Babar was dismissed leg-before or bowled 11 times in 41 innings. Since then, it is eight times in 17 innings, nearly double the rate. Previously, it appeared to be a flaw only against left-arm spin, responsible for six of those 11 dismissals. In this recent run, more than half of those dismissals are to right-arm pace (and a couple of lbws to left-arm spin suggest that remains an issue).And there are the unconverted starts. His scores since the 161 against New Zealand in Karachi in December 2022 are, in order: 14, 24, 27, 13, 24, 39, 21, 14, 1, 41, 26, 23. The consistency of those failed starts is uncanny.It’s difficult to put a finger on why it’s happening. Is it to do with his concentration, that he gets set but is increasingly prone to lapses in it? It does bring to mind an early glitch in his Test career, of getting out around breaks.Pakistan’s Test schedule, and more specifically the gaps between Tests, can’t be helping. The first Test against Bangladesh will be Pakistan’s – and Babar’s – first since January in Australia. Those Tests, in turn, were their first for five months, since a series in July 2023 in Sri Lanka. And those Tests were their first in six months. By contrast, between January 2021 and December 2022, their longest gap between Tests was about four months.Babar has managed to score only one hundred in 17 Test innings since December 2022•Dave Hewison/Getty ImagesLong-form batting needs regular release. It works to a constant rhythm. Pakistan’s recent Test schedule has been so arrhythmic (and after the Tests against West Indies in January 2025, they don’t play another for ten months), it isn’t easy, even for someone of Babar’s gifts, to dance to this irregular beat. And schedules as they are mean he hardly gets to play any domestic first-class cricket in the interim: his last such game was the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy final in December 2019.The off-field dysfunctions of his employers can’t have been helpful, the churn of board and coaching regimes. He is not an especially articulate or expressive personality publicly, and he hasn’t spoken about being removed from the captaincy after the 2023 World Cup. In any case, the PCB will hardly allow for such a public venting, not least because of their own role in building him up to that stature in the preceding years.But who knows how much being dumped so suddenly as captain – that too by one of the all-time clown PCB administrations under Zaka Ashraf – jolted him? We’re talking here of an almost unparalleled tenure by Pakistan standards: in the modern age (excluding Abdul Kardar), only Misbah-ul-Haq has been captain longer without (anything but temporary) interruption, and that too wasn’t across all formats like Babar. He’d seen off multiple board chairmen, lived through various coaches, through losses and wins alike, across four unchallenged years. Who knows how much that removal shook his core equanimity, or the equilibrium that had once developed in the dressing room under him? He’s never struck one as a proactive or imaginative captain but equally he – or his batting – rarely seemed burdened by it.He now has nine Tests ahead of him, a rare uninterrupted sequence of long-form cricket, and the comfort of home surfaces in seven of them. No captaincy as distraction (though neither, perhaps, as motivation); challenges against left-arm spin to overcome, quality pace to repel; a return to South Africa, where he first served notice of his Test quality; a high-profile series against England. All in all, it is the perfect platform on which to refresh, to reset. Nine Tests to distance himself from the doom and gloom and stagnancy of the last 18 months or so, and to move closer to where he really should be.

The Iyer Equation – Shreyas plays the numbers, and gets the answer right

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

Shreyas Iyer didn’t get a century on his Punjab Kings captaincy debut, but he’s put his money where his mouth is, with his eyes on the prize

Ekanth26-Mar-20252:12

‘Probably Shreyas Iyer’s best IPL innings’

The value of every run in cricket is the same, until it isn’t. After a point, it is less hard-earned currency and more arithmetic operation. Framing the equation is the only luxury the batter gets. It’s one Shreyas Iyer was afforded on 97, on debut as Punjab Kings (PBKS) captain, with his team on 220 with an over to go: 97 + 3 = 100. Straightforward.But Iyer wasn’t in the mood for all that. Instead, he left it to Shashank Singh – his batting partner who was the team’s designated finisher – and sent what we can think of as a message for everyone in the team: “Shashank, don’t be like ‘ (I’m close to a hundred), just play your shots and finish it well’.” As it turned out, the equation that was set in motion was 220 + 23 = 243.The run economy was in dire straits on an Ahmedabad flatty. But those 23 runs that came from Shashank off Gujarat Titans’ (GT) Mohammed Siraj in the final over were telling in this IPL 2025 match. PBKS won by 11 runs, yes, but – back to the math – they had 27 to defend in the final over of the chase.Related

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“Getting those extra 40 runs, especially after 200, because we had set [that as] a benchmark, that on this wicket, where the ball is also stopping a bit and turning, helping the spinners, that was our mindset,” Iyer, the Player of the Match, said on the broadcast afterwards. “But with the dew coming in, we knew that the scenario would be changing. Thankfully, we were able to execute and the way he [Shashank] performed was simply brilliant.”The relativity in the value of runs is often a curse for teams batting first. It’s not until the end of the game that they can tell if they made enough or too few (even if it’s one run).Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) have meddled with that order by attacking throughout the innings. However, that is somewhat contingent on batting conditions and the Impact Player rule. When it all clicks, wickets are incidental. For PBKS, it became that when Iyer went out to bat in the fourth over and nailed a “confidence-boosting” on-drive off Kagiso Rabada, followed by a flicked six in a 14-run over.Shreyas Iyer took his risks, and they came off•Getty ImagesYet, Rabada was brought back for another over in the powerplay – wickets might be incidental at times, but early wickets are substantial. So, from a bowling team’s point of view, there’s good reason to exhaust three of the four overs of the strike bowler early rather than save them for later, when they might encounter set batters.Rabada’s first ball of that sixth over was a jaffa – in the channel, rising from a length – that Iyer nearly nicked off. He was beaten again, on the flick, by a 146kph full delivery next ball, and survived what turned out to be a bad review for lbw. Call it a dodgy bet but if one of those two had led to Iyer’s wicket, then keeping Rabada on would have been as good a captaincy decision as a batter sacrificing strike in the last over.Such variability is why No. 3s anchor the innings, if they can see off good bowlers and play themselves in, they have the chance to bat long and hold an innings together. But when Iyer got back on strike for the last ball of the over, the earlier events didn’t matter. Short third was in, deep point was back, and the shortish ball was glided through the gap.Iyer had wanted to mark the No. 3 spot for the season, and PBKS want to establish themselves as a force in a way they have struggled to previously. So why an anchor when you can zoom away like a speedboat?Shashank Singh and Shreyas Iyer walk off after adding 81 in just 28 balls•IPLSome of the risks that Iyer took didn’t come with insurance. That flicked six off Rabada in the powerplay went over deep square-leg, the only outfielder on the leg-side boundary. He was nearly caught on the same boundary in the 17th over, but Rabada stepped on the boundary cushion with ball in hand.However, it was in the takedown of R Sai Kishore, who had 2 for 3 after two overs, that Iyer’s bravado was on full display. PBKS had slipped to 108 for 4 in 12 overs after a 73-run powerplay, and there was need for consolidation but also the risk of stagnation. So Iyer made room first ball and went inside-out over long-off, and the heave two balls later was off the bottom of the bat, yet the ball sailed over long-on.Iyer struck 35 off 12 short and short-of-length deliveries, his strike rate was above 180 against every bowler by the end of it, and he was – as Ravi Shastri said on air – “batting like a three-million-dollar man”. It’s too early to say if PBKS have hit the jackpot with the INR 26.75 crore auction purchase, but their captain looks willing to put his money where his mouth is, with his eyes on the prize from day one.

Ollie Peake's subcontinent education: 'I was absolutely cooked'

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

The 18-year-old only has a handful of professional appearances but has already been around the Test squad and played for Australia A

Deivarayan Muthu13-Aug-2025Since breaking into Australia’s Under-19 World Cup squad after being originally named as a non-travelling reserve last year, Ollie Peake has ticked off landmarks like items on a shopping list.In a space of 17 months, Peake has won the Under-19 World Cup, made his Big Bash League (BBL) debut for Melbourne Renegades, marked his Sheffield Shield debut for Victoria with a half-century, and has even had a stint with the Australia side as a development player on their tour to Sri Lanka earlier this year.Related

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Peake, an 18-year-old left-hand batter, is currently in Chennai training at the MRF academy in the lead-up to red-ball four-day matches in Lucknow with the Australia A side. This is his third trip to the subcontinent, and he seems to have a reference point for what to do in these conditions, which are usually favourable to spin.”I guess the first time we came over here [with the Australia Under-19s], you have to play the bowling differently to Australian spinners because the conditions are more extreme,” Peake said. “Batting for ten minutes, I was absolutely cooked at the time. So, I had to learn how to sort of take a bit more pressure off mentally and try and relax a bit more. And then sort of worry about technique after that because if you can’t bat for more than 10 minutes, then you’re not going to have too much hope.”But, yeah, at the moment, trying a few different things like getting lower in my stance, try and be really proactive on my feet to the best I can. That’s something that all the boys are all doing pretty well. And then evolving with a few sweep shots and reverse-sweeps and stuff like that to counter the bowler’s best balls as well.”Ollie Peake was part of the Sri Lanka tour in early 2025 as a development player•Getty ImagesHaving coped with Chennai’s unforgiving heat and former Ranji Trophy champions Saurashtra during a three-day red-ball fixture at the MRF ground, Peake has been trying to find ways to accumulate runs in risk-free fashion.”I’ve picked up heaps of stuff in the last five or six days,” Peake said. “The training has been really intense and super beneficial as well. Apart from different sweep shots, I’m in the process of trying different stuff like how to defend more off the back foot, score off the back foot a lot more. So, I’m just trying to sort of find ways to mitigate risk and score quickly when the conditions are really extreme.”Peake believes his time with the senior Australia side in Sri Lanka is a key step in his progress.”It was a pretty cool experience going over there and learning off guys who I’ve watched on TV for ten years,” Peake said. “A lot of the stuff that I got out of the trip was not necessarily in the nets batting; it was more talking to people about their pathway and how they approach spin bowling and what they do outside of cricket as well. I found most value just talking to people, having dinner and that was really beneficial.”

It feels like it’s all happening pretty quick. I absolutely love playing cricket and travelling the world. You couldn’t really ask for too many better things, could you? But I don’t think it’s a fluke by any degreeOllie Peake on his rapid rise

Peake is still a teenager and has played just six professional games so far in senior cricket, but selectors see him as a player with immense potential and the Geelong cricket community sees him as their next hero after Aaron Finch.”It [Geelong] is a cool place to grow up,” Peake said. “I think everyone’s aspiring to be like Finchy in Geelong and dad [Clinton Peake] was lucky to play with him for a few years for Geelong cricket club and yeah, to learn off dad as well at Geelong has been great and the community is unreal.”The cricket club is really giving and really generous with their time. I think I’ve been there my whole life, so it’s pretty cool to try and turn into Finchy and for kids to look up to me in a way is a cool thing in a bit of a full circle moment.”When he was growing up Peake also played first-team football for Geelong Grammar before an injury seemingly ended his football ambitions. At Geelong Grammar, Peake was mentored by the late Troy Selwood, and he credits the former Brisbane Lions midfielder for shaping his sporting career.”A lot of my best mates are actually footy players, so I can still sort of connect with AFL and I guess live vicariously through them in a way and get my footy kick out of that,” Peake said. “Troy was a massive mentor for me. He really helped me with that sort of balance, life balance, which inevitably helps with your chosen sports performance and he was huge for me from Year 10 to 12. But I did love my footy growing up.”Ollie Peake will be pushing for a regular spot in the Victoria side this season•Getty ImagesClinton has been in his son’s shoes before – in 1995 at the MCG, he became the first player to record a triple-century in youth Tests – and continues to be a sounding board for Ollie.”We train in Geelong and whenever I feel like I’m not really batting too well, he [dad] is probably someone that I can go back to,” Peake said. “I do it less frequently now but after I walk away from a session with him, I feel ready to go to play against anyone.”I reckon probably my best skill in cricket is sort of the way that I think about the game, not necessarily having a really good pull shot or cut shot or cover drive. It’s more mental skills. So I think it’s been trained along the journey. I think dad’s been a massive help for that.”Peake’s elevation to the Australia A team may seem rapid from the outside, but for him it’s reward for his behind-the-scenes grind for a number of years.”Not a blur as such but, yeah, it’s definitely going from one thing to the other,” Peake reflected on his rise. “It feels like it’s all happening pretty quick. I absolutely love playing cricket and travelling the world. You couldn’t really ask for too many better things, could you? But I don’t think it’s a fluke by any degree.”I think it sort of goes back to Covid, when I was training every day and banking up hours and it just feels like everything sort of clicked. Very fortunate to be able to represent all these different teams.”It may not be too long before Peake makes the step-up to the main Australia team, especially if he has a successful tour of India with the A team in September.

Storm, steel and silverware: how Angie and SL took over the world in 2014

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

It was a year in which Sri Lanka carved a glorious arc through world cricket, and at the heart of it was a man who did everything, everywhere, all at once

Andrew Fidel Fernando16-Jun-2025There was no indication early on that 2014 would turn out to be such a roaring tornado of a year for Sri Lanka’s men, though it did start strangely.Sri Lanka and Pakistan began a Test on the last day of 2013, and played it into the fourth day of 2014, a game that turned out to be a staid draw in the end. But upon this first match of the calendar year (there is some debate on which year this game belongs to) Angelo Mathews made sure to write his name. Without his 91 in the first innings, Sri Lanka would have been skittled for far less than their eventual 204. Without his 157 not out in the second innings, his team would have struggled to keep the opposition at bay.There was a lot going on at the time. The previous year, Mathews had been made captain of the Test and ODI teams at age 25, which at the time was unusually young for a Sri Lanka leader. The board, additionally, was in its brashest era. Sri Lanka Cricket was backed by a government that at the time controlled practically everything on the island, which in turn empowered SLC to fight battles on two important fronts – against the Big Three, who made their first brazen attempt to control the global game in the first quarter of 2014, as well as against the top men’s players, whom the board felt were too highly-paid while the SLC was trying to claw its way back from enormous debt.Related

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The men’s schedule was packed as well. There was an Asia Cup coming up, a full away tour to Bangladesh, Test tours away to England and Pakistan (UAE), and late in the year, an away series in New Zealand. At home, there were Tests against South Africa and Pakistan, plus Mahela Jayawardene’s Test retirement. If you add to this the intolerable weight of having made it to four ICC tournament finals since 2007 and always having been runners up, there was clearly a lot of pressure on the main event of 2014 – the T20 World Cup.The team’s response to all of this was to be electric and unmissable right through those 12 months. And within that team, there was no one as electric, or as unmissable, as Mathews, across almost all fronts. He was, that year, as adept at taking new-ball wickets in T20Is and ODIs, as stonewalling when the team faced a major Test deficit, as crashing boundaries in big knockouts, as prowling the covers and ranging the boundaries, as marshalling the tail, as rebuilding after a collapse, as sneaking red-ball wickets in crucial passages. Because he was the main captain, Mathews would also find himself at the centre of various controversies, including a ‘Mankading’ dismissal in England.Angelo Mathews lifts the Asia Cup in 2014•AFPIn the Test at Lord’s Kumar Sangakkara deservedly got the headlines for his determined entry into the honours board in what would be his final Test there. But Mathews’ 102 in the first innings, and 90-ball 18 in the second, were vital to pushing that match so deep that Sri Lanka were able to save it by the skin of their teeth. In the T20 World Cup, Rangana Herath and the frontline quicks dominated the middle and death overs. But Mathews had often set the stage for them with his miserly early spells. In the semi-final against West Indies, his 40 off 23 was Sri Lanka’s best. In the final, he claimed figures of 1 for 25 off four overs.In a home Test series against South Africa, Mathews didn’t get out for any fewer than 63, showcasing remarkable consistency. Then in the following match, against Pakistan, he pushed himself up the order and began hooking manically into the stands as Sri Lanka chased a Test victory in the dying moments of the fifth day, a raucous crowd thronging Galle’s fort ramparts as well as the grass banks in the stadium. Mathews hit the winning run just as the heavens unleashed a torrent.Mathews and Sri Lanka’s finest hour: the 2014 T20 World Cup win over India•ICC”He was just one of the best cricketers that fit any situation,” Sangakkara says about Angelo Mathews. Sangakkara, by the way, was having no-less epic a year. But as exceptional as Sangakkara was with the bat and the gloves, no one was firing on as many cylinders as Mathews.”He never went in and read the situation wrong,” Sangakkara says. “For someone to instinctively do that at such a young age was phenomenal. Everyone talks about Michael Bevan and these other late order batters who were so good, but Angie was also exceptional in that – the way he batted with the tail, the way he attacked and cleared the boundary with such clarity. He seemed to have an answer to every match situation.”His greatest moment in Tests came in Headingley that year, when his 4 for 16 with the ball restricted England to a lead of only 108 when they’d been headed for much more, before his bruising 160 in the second innings – which featured a 149-run partnership for the eighth wicket with Herath, turned the match on its head. So often in this stretch of Mathews’ career, tailenders would observably bat with more responsibility if he was the batter at the other end, like office workers who would quit chit-chatting, straighten their ties, and get back to the desk when the boss walked in. In that second innings at Headingley, Mathews had thrown his bat in anger when Dhammika Prasad (who could bat a bit) squandered his wicket first ball. So desperate was Prasad to redeem himself, that he came out and produced the bowling performance of his career, to help Sri Lanka win that game, or so the story goes.There will always be the disappointment that Mathews didn’t keep this up. Why wasn’t he roughly this good for so many more years? Why does he now average less than 45 with the bat? Why has he not strode his way to 10,000 Test runs? There is the obvious structural difference post-2015, which is that Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, and Tillakaratne Dilshan, whose excellence had created space for the young Mathews, retired and left a young team to its own devices. Where the senior batters had once cleared the dancefloor on which Mathews busted his moves, after 2015 so many situations into which Mathews arrived felt like a crisis.Sri Lanka’s 2014 tour of England: Mathews was never far from moments of magic, or controversy•PA PhotosThere is also the sense that he flew a little too close to the sun. Between 2010 and 2015, no one played more international cricket. He wishes he’d clocked this workload at the time, but then asks when he would possibly have had the time to take a step back and adjust? In 2014, he was a leading figure of one of the greatest Sri Lanka sides ever assembled, desperate to finally win the silverware to reflect that greatness. Within six months in 2014, Sri Lanka won an Asia Cup, a T20 World Cup, a Test series in England, and a home series against Pakistan. Mathews was instrumental to every one of those victories.That Mathews was coming in lower down, bred the kind of trophy-winning aggression even the top order displayed. “It gave me huge confidence knowing that Angie was there, because you know you’re in absolutely in good hands,” Sangakkara says. “It gives you a lot of freedom to bat, and up your tempo, or reverse pressure and be a little more aggressive. You knew you had this exceptional batter to come.”There are other exceptional Mathews moments. His captaining of the 3-0 home whitewash of Australia is an obvious. Batting all day with Kusal Mendis to save a Test match at the Basin Reserve in 2018 is another.But even without any of that, Mathews’ 2014 was enough. This was a year in which Sri Lanka carved a glorious arc through world cricket, stirring controversy sometimes with their own board, sometimes with the opposition, enrapturing their fans for months on end. In addition to the great batters already mentioned, the likes of Lasith Malinga and Herath have also had their legacies partially defined by the trophies won through this stretch.All those superstars needed 2014’s wins to provide the late validation their great careers deserved. All those superstars needed every bit of Angelo Mathews they got that year.

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